Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Ambient / Neo-classical / Ethereal-Wave gods Dead Can Dance today launched Anastasis, their first new studio album in sixteen years.

Following the initial announcement and release of a free download of the song "Amnesia" on Pitchfork media yesterday, the band's homepage was today updated to allow free streaming of the 3complete album and pre-purchase options for the album in a range of formats including digital download and deluxe autographed packages.

There's now a purportedly complete track listing for Anastasis floating around out there. No sign of this information on the band's official pages that I can see yet, but let us grant it the benefit of the doubt by assuming it to be accurate. Also some dispute about the actual release date with suggestions that it may in fact be August 13. May well depend upon the country in which you are unlucky enough to reside.

1. Children Of The Sun
2. Anabasis
3. Agape
4. Amnesia
5.
Kiko
6. Opium
7. Return Of The She-King
8. All In Good Time

Sunday, June 17, 2012

I’m fifteen and by virtue of my parents rather than by anything resembling choice, living in the vaguely unfashionable inner western suburbs of Sydney in what, since the rise of the Hill Song megachurch would come to be known as the Sydney Bible Belt. While I would dearly love to relate to you my decadent tales of sex, drugs and life on the post-punk scene, unfortunately I was a rather nerdy teenager with a proclivity for playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This probably explains why I thought fantasy based metal bands like Manowar were the best thing since sliced cheese while being naively oblivious to the fact that “cheese” was actually the operative word.

Goths were around of course, and I’d see them whenever I went into the inner-city, but it would be at least another year before I heard the term. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that few people in Sydney’s working class west at the time would have had a clue what Goth was, let alone that the subculture existed.

I’m not telling you this for its own sake you’ll be pleased to know, but rather, to outline the context for the rest of this post. At some point during 1985, a graffiti bombing campaign was launched around the inner suburbs of Sydney and there was an explosion of “The Widowed Isis” tags appearing all over suburbs like Newtown. It attracted sufficient attention that the main local rag, the Sydney Morning Herald even ran a brief article demanding to know what it meant. This doesn’t speak well of journalistic standards at the SMH since relatively simple investigation would have revealed The Widowed Isis to have been a local Goth band gigging in Sydney at the time.

I mention all this because 27 years later, that article somehow floated back into my mind today while driving home from work. Was there anything to be found? What could be salvaged?

Although there wasn’t much, I was surprised at what I did find. I say “surprised” because most Australian Goth bands of the period don’t seem to have left much of a legacy, The Birthday Party and Dead Can Dance being the obvious exceptions, both of whom wasted no time in sodding off to the UK, so I certainly didn’t expect to find an actual bone fide video clip.

The Jim Morrison (I Want to Be) 7” seems to have been the band’s first release from back in 1985. Assuming the strength of the video below is indicative of the rest of The Widowed Isis’ output, then it’s a real shame they didn’t become bigger. Possibly if they’d followed The Birthday Party and Dead Can Dance’s example?

Jim Morrison (I Want to Be)

A second offering was to follow, the You Can’t Make Me Burn / Live Your Life 7” in 1986, once again on Zed about which even less is known, although from the lyric sheet, “Live Your Life” does appear to be a nicely ironic tribute to Australian right wing shock-jocks and the morons who listen to them.

The rear of You Can't Make Me burn 7" God bless you

John Laws - still spewing right wing populist crap 25 years later.

One more was to come with 1987 bringing us a four track self titled EP, also through Zed Records, containing not only a revived “ Jim Morrison (I Want to be)”, but also “It Only LastsForever”, “The Wild Things” and a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “White Light / White Heat”. This is where the level of obscurity The Widowed Isis has fallen to really becomes apparent. Not only is the EP the only Widowed Isis release covered by Discogs.com, but even their tremendous database doesn’t have a copy of the cover art. Indeed, on the entire web, the only place I was able to find an image was on the Post-Punk 80s Underground blog as depicted below .In fact, that blog post also contains a download for the E.P., but sadly, the link is dead. Perhaps if we all diligently click on the link, they’ll get the hint and re-upload it? Perhaps if we all beg them very nicely?

If the band’s moniker of “The Widowed Isis” seems curious, then you obviously aren’t clued up on Egyptian mythology. You should probably investigate. Rather than provide spoilers, I’ll simply say that the tale involves murder, dismemberment, revenge, attempted gay rape, incest, mystical masturbation and a lettuce. If that doesn’t pique your interest, then I’m at a loss to imagine what would.

In closing, let us present to you this very eccentric and unfortunately badly preserved TV interview that appears to be from after the Jim Morrison video clip was released, although by this stage drummer Jeff appears to have been replaced by Rex Mansfield. Although I was actively watching music shows on 80’s TV in Australia in 1985, I honestly have no memory of Radio Vision. If this pilot episode is anything to go by where the rather clueless and dodgy looking host descends into less than insightful questions as to whether any members of The Widowed Isis owns a dog, then it’s not hard to understand why it never made it into regular broadcast TV. Really quite bizarre viewing.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away when I was still
a poor university student, I actually owned a copy of Salvation’s Diamonds are
Forever LP (Ediesta Records, 1987). To say that it did nothing for me would be
something of an understatement. The mere fact that I can’t find it in my
collection any more strongly suggests that it was one of the many mediocrities
that I hocked to afford bus fare to uni back in the day.

Now that I finally get hold of a copy once again it’s a tad
disappointing that I still can’t find much good to say about it – it remains,
at best a very flaccid beast, hard to listen to without making the “meh” face and it’s easy to see how I was
able to sell it with few regrets.

Mercifully, this is not the album this post is about.

What we are talking about is something much earlier, much,
much better and sadly unreleased.

Salvation were yet another of the burgeoning Leeds Goth
scene in the early 80’s.

Never bearing quite the stature of the early Sisters, MarchViolets or Skeletal Family, yet (initially) working happily alongside them.
With their first single, “Girlsoul / Evelyn” coming out through The Sister’s of Mercy label
Merciful Release appearing in 1983 all seemed well.

Things were sufficiently cosy in fact for Andrew Eldritch to
take mixing duties of Salvation’s new EP, even lending them The Sisters' trusty drum machine Doktor Avalanche and understanding that the band were a
bit skint, to accept payment in magic pixie marching powder in lieu of cash. Everything
seemed fine, and yet the Clash of Dreams EP was never to be released.

So what happened?

Well everyone, both bands and commentators, seem to be a
little coy about saying outright, but the general gist seems to be that it may
have had something to do with the cover art of this little number:

The Sisters of Mercy Body and Soul 12"

(Merciful Release, 1885). Anyone else feeling a sense of deja vu?

Regardless of who came up with the concept first, a schism
does seem to have taken place between Salvation and Merciful Release with the
single Jessica’s Crime (a different version from the EP) eventually emerging on
Simon D of The March Violets’ label Batfish in 1985 and produced by Wayne Hussey.

The Clash of Dreams EP is clearly a child of the Leeds scene – the drum machine alone is a dead giveaway.
Not to mention how much “Burning On” can’t
help but invoke thoughts of The March Violets. What sets Salvation apart from
their Leeds contemporaries however, is the inclination towards psychedelia,
that seems to have become more prominent as their career progressed, perhaps a
result of more prominent groups like The Cult and All About Eve giving license
to such indulgences.

“Jessica’s Crime” is the obvious single here, but really,
the EP as a whole does little to disappoint. You can hear it online here: and I strongly suggest you do. A downloadable version is available at the most
excellent (and apparently sadly dormant) Return to the East blog, but sadly
both versions seem to have been taken from a damaged cassette that has been shakily
repaired. If anyone has access to a more pristine version, please let me know
and I’ll be more than happy to arrange to make it more widely available.

Little of the abandoned Clash of Dreams EP remains.
Jessica’s crime was released as a 7” (Batfish Incorporated, 1985) and Sea of Dreams
would eventually re-emerge in a very different version on Diamonds are Forever.
Nothing else remains.

The October Hour / The Return

Jessica's Crime (7" version)

Meanwhile, Salvation
went on to produce two LPs and a surprising number of singles. With that kind
of dedication, it almost seems rude to scoff at the undergraduate humour that
led them to include a song called “Pearl Necklace” on the B-side of their
Sunshine Superman 12” (Karbon, 1988).

If you did want to chase down Salvation, a compilation
called Salvation: The Complete Collection 1985-89 (Cherry Red, 2005) exists,
apparently a re-release of the earlier Hunger Days 1985-89 comp (Timeslip,
1997) but with the Girlsoul 7” tacked on. It’s readily available on iTunes.

“Good God, they’re
still going!” declared an astonished Mick Mercer way back in 1992 (Gothic
Rock, Pegasus Publishing). If that amazed him then, he’s probably going to spit
his wooden dentures across the room when he discovers that 20 years later,
they’re playing the DV8 festival at the end of this month.

Heads up to those of you in York.

Track Listing:

The
October Hour

Jessica’s
Crime

Burning
On

Sea of Dreams

Figurehead

No
Return

Line Up: Danny Mass (synths), James Elmore (bass), Mike (guitar – but replaced by Choque Hosein before the
Jessica’s Crime 7” was released)

Although the official Salvation site describes this photo as an "early" lineup, the extra head leads me to suspect that is is probably from around 86 when the band decided to replace the drum machine with Paul Maher.

A Welcome and Introduction

Plunder the Tombs was started back in 2010 by way of looking back on a musical past that I felt in sore need of curation.

It was a strange and sad time when what passed for “Goth” in clubs seemed a pale imitator of what once was, following first a decade of cookie-cutter Sisters of the Nephilim clone bands and then another decade of industrial dance being palmed off to younger audiences as a type of faux goth. When on rare occasion DJs in “Goth” clubs did finally become brave enough to play something like Bauhaus it was not untypical to have the dance floor clear, and it became obvious that the memory, meaning and legacy of much that had gone before had been lost.

It’s probably safe to say that the boundaries of what was “Goth” were never clearly defined. An absolute blessing for those bands on the original scene before it had a name pinned to the donkey, but an outright curse for those who came later and found rules had been imposed to dictate that which was and that which was not acceptable. Worse still was to come in the 90s from a lazy and unquestioning media who simply assumed that anything that wore black and make up was by definition “Goth”, thus allowing all manner of pretenders licence, and maximising confusion as to what the term actually referred to.

This has gone on for way too long and its time is at an end. Neo Post-Punk bands now proliferate across Europe, old long dead Goth bands rise from their crypts in the UK, and new deathrock bands are breeding like rabbits up the west coast of America. It is time to reclaim our scene back from metal bands and ravers in disguise.

While the Plunder the Tombs of old focused on what had gone before, there are now far too many exciting new things to ignore. We roar back to life in a reboot, covering past , present and things yet to come.

Let us plunder the tombs….

About Me

A DJ throughout the 90s at numerous Goth night clubs in Perth including The Cell, Dominion and others he was probably far too drunk to remember, largely as a result of his preference to work for bar tabs over cash. Also helped found 6RTR fm's Goth & Industrial showcase Darkwings.
More recent projects include the currently dormant Descent - a small night dedicated to playing genuinely good Goth music both old and new in preference to packing the dance floor with songs everyone had heard 20 million times before. He currently runs a monthly show on Behind the Mirror on 6RTR fm which can be heard on Wednesdays at 11pm WST.
Rumour has it he once masterminded an ill-advised Goth fanzine "Small Pleasures" that in retrospect, he remains profoundly grateful never made it off his desk.